January 2011 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 31 Jan '11

31 Jan '11

jim said: > yet-another round of an escalating war of > fiddling, unfiddling, and re-fiddling. no, jim, you're not going to evade the issue with doubletalk. and, just so it's clear, when you discuss the problems with using .html, you are only _weakening_ your base position... just in case you didn't notice that particular little reversal... *** jim said: > If I remember BB, you were trying > to convince people why they should i'm not surprised you can't remember what's happening, because you confused yourself with your reversals and evasions and doubletalk and side-road explorations... so i will remind you. first of all, let's dispense with the notion that i am "trying" to "convince" anyone of anything. this is a very common misconception that i have cleared up time and time again, but nonetheless people keep regenerating it spontaneously. i'm not trying to "convince" anybody of anything. i don't give a rat's ass what anybody does, including p.g. yes, i do say that "p.g. should do such-and-such", but that's just another way of saying "the best practice to do so-and-so is to do such-and-such". what p.g. _actually_ does is up to p.g. so it's exactly like when i say "the u.s. should get out of iraq". i'm not running for president in order to implement that, and i'm under no illusions that i can influence u.s. foreign policy, and in the end it makes no difference to me what happens, i'm just airing my voice to tell the world what i see as truth... the same thing here. just airing my voice to speak my truth. it's all just intellectual dialog. make of it what you will. dig? *** now, let's get back to jim, because this is all about you, jim... so let's remind people what you said, jim... jim said that p.g. should make .html its master-format. that's a ridiculous position, with which i take serious issue. jim said this is because people want to download e-books and just have them work the way they want, and not have to "fiddle" with them. this position, on the other hand, is one that i actually agree with... until, that is, jim appends that .html is the format that will best serve this purpose, which again transports his position into the land of the ridiculous. so that's what we're talking about here, jim. i'm showing the world that your position, on making .html the master-format for p.g., is ridiculous. it is unworkable. i'm also showing that .html will _not_ create a world where p.g. end-users can simply "download an e-book that works the way that they want it to", for a wide variety of reasons... those are the things we're talking about jim. and i'm gonna keep talking about them until everyone here on this listserve recognizes that you have no clue about what you're talking about. in the past, i've let you slip away without being pinned down, but then you just pop up months later with the same tripe, so this time, we're gonna end your nonsense once and for all. > Do I like HTML? No, not particularly. Then why use it? > Because a large number of PG "authors" CAN write in it, > using any of a very large variety of tools, and > have the results more-or-less readable > on a very large variety of machines yeah, you're not gonna slip out of the pin by watering down your arguments, either, because then you only have a watered-down position... yes, it's true that a large number of p.g. digitizers _can_ create .html, and that they use a large variety of tools... that's part of the problem... indeed, that is probably the _biggest_ part of the problem. because there are so many different ways to do something in .html, especially if we consider all the different "versions" of .html, some of which are the xhtml variants, and which are inconsistent with the other ways of doing .html, there will be _inconsistencies_ among the various practitioners. it's those inconsistencies which make it impossible to do anything useful with the files. all your attempts to "solve" this problem just introduce more problems into the mix, and you cannot solve those _either_... i can only imagine that you don't know this already because you've never really tried to do anything useful with the files. the other thing is that you've watered down your position where now the e-books are just "more or less readable", instead of the big brave talk where the files would work "the way the end-user wants". the truth of the matter is, you ignore any end-users who don't fit in your pattern... if they don't want .mobi or .epub, or your "master" .html, you simply ignore them, as if they didn't matter one bit... further, if they have any specific preferences, tough luck. if the book comes as justified, but they want ragged-right, and the e-book viewer-program won't let 'em change that, tough luck. if the quotes are curly but they like 'em straight, and the e-book viewer-program won't let 'em change that, tough luck. if they want block-paragraphs versus indented, and the e-book viewer-program won't let 'em change that, tough luck. in other words, if "the way you want the files" happens to match the way jim likes his files, then it's fine. otherwise, it's tough luck. that's no way to treat the users. and let's be frank. a lot of these .epub viewer-programs _will_not_ let you change these important variables, _or_ any number of _other_ important preference variables... and it's even worse than that, because a lot of these .epub viewer-programs have bugs inconsistent with each other. so we're reliving the nightmare of "browser inconsistencies" that has plagued us for the last decade (and still does today, if we consider things like the battles over the video codec)... so even if you put out a consistent .epub -- and remember, you won't, because your base .html files are inconsistent -- but even if you _did_ put out a consistent .epub, it wouldn't get rendered consistently across your end-user population. these are some of the problems, jim. and this is why your position is ludicrous. and we're going to drill that home... -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 31 Jan '11

31 Jan '11

jim said: > now you are using some kind of oversized, > and over-light bizarro font i believe it's simply calling the default serif font, which is whatever you specified in your browser. but if i'm wrong about that, do please let me know. > you are embedding page margins within HTML, > which “everyone” knows is a no-no. i copied that out of your style sheet for #29452... > Contents now includes Title and Contents itself, > both of which is certainly wrong. it did before, because that's how i do things. but i'll take it out, to give it to you your way. > Title poorly formatted. See the real book no more evasion. you tell me how you want it. > Choice of asterisks as a fancy rule looks a bit strange. tell me what you want instead. > Too small and too light for the intended use. i have no idea what this means. > Missing vertical whitespace before poetry (when translated to MOBI) i haven't done the .mobi conversion yet... > Gratuitous horizontal rule before “the end” whatever. i'll delete it to make you happy. > “The End” capitalized wrong, i don't use capitals, and i put that in. so i'll delete it. > Gratuitous “v?” i explained that. but i forgot about your reading comprehension impairment. never mind. i'll delete it, so you're happy. > Now missing cover entirely (when translated to MOBI) i do the mobi conversion, not you. -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 31 Jan '11

31 Jan '11

ok, it's sunday afternoon, jim. where are my .pdfs? *** i visited feedbooks.com, to see what it offers users in terms of customizing the .pdf which is created... they let you control the pagesize, which is useful, in millimeters!, which -- for americans -- is not... (they tried to make us convert, hadrien; didn't work; and i doubt an effort by feedbooks will change that.) users are also given options to control the fontsize, the font (a choice of 6, all traditionals you'd guess), and all four margins. you can also select a template for a4, for a 6" reader, and a 5" reader... (strangely, here they acknowledge inches as a measurement unit.) *** manybooks.net offers users a similar set of choices... pagesize (again, only in millimeters), with presets for: a4, letter, sony, iliad, cybook, iphone, nokia, bebook, and jetbook. they let you specify a body font separately from the heading font, but only give a person 4 choices. they let you specify the pointsize, but also linespacing... albeit it's only in 1.00, 1.25, 1.50, and 1.75 values, but feedbooks didn't give users any control over the leading. finally, manybooks also lets you control all four margins. *** to my mind, both of these sites offer a very good start, but they don't go nearly far enough offering options... i think there should be many more choices of fonts... (these days, with google-fonts and type-kit and all that, even a web-based service can offer a good font choice). i also think they should give users full control of leading. in addition, however, i would offer a host of other options. in fact, with my tool, i _do_ offer end-users more options... i let them use any font on their machine, and any leading. i let them control the color of the text. (down the line, i might let them customize the font and color of specific structural components, like headers, block-quotes, etc.) i let them control the metadata embedded in the .pdf... i let them control the run-heads and the page-footers... i give them the option of ragged right versus justified... also, because they have the text itself, they can control straight-quotes versus curly, em-dash versus double, and block-paragraphs versus indented. however, i will be adding capabilities to my program which let the user _change_ all these on the fly, without modifying the text. *** of course, we'll want a few other things your .pdf too, such as a working table-of-contents. but you can work on those finer points once you get all the basics down... (and yes, i already offer a working table-of-contents.) *** so, if you want to keep up, jim, you'll need to set up a web-system or an offline app that can offer all that. (and, as some end-users might not have a computer that'll run an offline app, a web-app would be good.) because you wanna give an end-user the e-book that they want, or -- failing that -- the ability to _create_ the e-book that they want. at least i assume you do. *** so, anyway, jim, where are my .pdfs? it would also be good if you could take a look at the latest version of the .html file for "the jungle", and say what still needs fixing, or verify it's a-ok... remember, i'm not gonna let you slide away quietly. -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 Jan '11

30 Jan '11

go get your own threads! stop hijacking this one! especially you, karen lofstrum and david starner! you'd think those two characters would _realize_ i started this thread -- because the all-lowercase subject header is a very good, telling hint, eh?, and who else initiates threads that generate traffic? -- so you'd also think that since they killfile my posts they'd know they missed a huge part of the thread, and thus figure out that they're probably off-topic. but no, no sir, no such evidence of that in sight... go away, you scavengers. scram! -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 Jan '11

30 Jan '11

jim said: > style should be primarily up to the publishing house my view on fonts is that the end-user picks the font. you are the end-user for our little experiment here, so pick your font. i will not be bothered otherwise... > Leave it out and use some extra vertical whitespace i will not just "leave out" the asterisks, because they signal a scene-break in the original book, which is a very important piece of information that should be retained for anyone who wants to copy out this text. but i can turn them white, so they become invisible, similar to what i did with the rules you wanted deleted. > It means that when I read this on my Kindle > or in my web browser it is so small and > leaves so little visual impact compared to > the surrounding text that it looks like a mistake. whatever. i will make them invisible, in keeping with your suggestion to use some extra vertical whitespace. the new version is up, albeit with old-style asterisks... tell me if there's anything else, before i change it again. -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 Jan '11

30 Jan '11

bob said: > spent a little time looking at them on my Sony Reader: if nobody else is gonna respond to this, i will... *** first, though, i'll say that bob, if project gutenberg won't host your custom .epubs, i would be very happy to do so. you can just zip them all together and e-mail them to me. i'm sure i will learn something from them, since i am now starting to piece together my .epub conversion routines... in this regard, i would also love to have your feedback, bob (and others, if you have any), on the .epub i have generated for this "jungle" competition with jim. (where are you, jim?) > http://z-m-l.com/go/jjngl/jjngl.epub more on that development as it... develops... *** ok, back to bob's review: > They all have a working html contents page (TOC) ok, that's good. > also I think the idea of putting a back link to the TOC > on every chapter head is excellent and I shall copy it > with my hand-crafted epubs. great. you'll love it. and if you want to take the idea two steps further, do this: at each chapter-heading, also include links that go to the _previous_chapter_ and the _next_chapter_. so instead of a "bicycle-spokes" structure, you have a "chain" structure. this allows the human to "step through" the chapters, either forward or backward, and it is a very useful functionality... and of course, there's also a link to go to the contents page. you can see an example of this structure here: > http://z-m-l.com/go/alice/alice01.html the left-angle brackets above each header link to the previous chapter, the right-angle ones to the next, and the "c" between them jumps to the table of contents... you will also see there that i used the same structure for the illustrations. above each illustration, there is a left-angle bracket that links to the previous illustration, a right-angle bracket that links to the next illustration, and an "i" that links to a hotlinked list of illustrations... this allows the user to "thumb through" the illustrations, which is a very nice and nifty capability, don't you agree? i don't always use this structure -- for instance, i haven't used it in this jungle-jim competition -- but whenever i leave it out, i end up wishing that i _would_ have used to... > Using the XML TOC (the .ncx file) works > but it takes 3-5 seconds to open, which > makes this unacceptable as a navigational tool. believe me, if you use the in-document linking strategy i just suggested, your use of the .ncx navigation will be rare enough that the slow load-time won't be a bother... > This is true for all ten epubs, but it isn't true of > other XML TOCs, either for older PG epubs or > for my hand-crafted versions. there must be some difference between those files... if you can track it down, the info might be useful... (i say "might" because who knows if marcello would actually pay any attention, of if he'd just dismiss it.) > The layout seems to me to be, like the curate's egg, > 'good in parts'. Actually that's a bit negative, perhaps > 'mostly good but with some irritating flaws' might be fairer. ok, tell us about the flaws... > Chapter headings generally are > in too big a font size, > (or too bold, or with too large margins, > or more than one of the aforegoing). that should be easy enough for marcello to change... when i know the size of the viewport/page/window, i copyfit the headings. that is, i adjust their size so that the biggest one will nonetheless display nicely. can't do that if you don't know the pagesize, of course, but it's still a good strategy to keep in mind regardless. > I am working on a font-size range of 90%-135% > of the browser default in my hand-crafted versions. > I find anything smaller is too wearing to read, and > anything bigger just gets broken across more than > one line (and looks all wrong). i have found that headers can be bigger _or_ bolder, and only occasionally need to be _both_. then again, i often show 'em in a different color, which helps too. (and, of course, they should have nice air around 'em, something i have _not_ done correctly in these "jungle" conversions i've done. i need to adjust the stylesheet.) > Also I would split chapter headings (CHAPTER I) > say from the chapter title > (COMING INTO THE WILDERNESS) i call the combination of those two "the heading". i call the _number_ part "the chapter number" and i call the _title_ part "the chapter title". terminology. and yes, they absolutely _must_ be split. otherwise, you've got a conglomeration that is _way_ too long. combining the number and the title is ludicrous... > and do the title in a smaller font. not really. if possible, i do the title in a larger font. (subject, of course, to the copyfitting i mentioned.) the way you suggest it is what was done traditionally. but i just think that's wrong. the chapter number doesn't _need_ to be any bigger. as a number, it stands out just fine no matter its size. and i don't believe repetitive and redundant elements -- like the word "chapter" -- really deserve a big size. the title, which is the unique, _could_ be done bigger, but if they are wordy (as they often are, and remember that you need to judge this by using the wordiest one), then you're often stuck with the same size as body-text. which is not necessarily a bad thing, since -- as i said up above -- the white-space around a heading should be more than enough to make it stand out sufficiently. > while I'm about it I don't think Latin chapter numbers > are practical on the limited screen size of an e-reader i assume you really meant to say _roman_ numbers... and yes, i'd agree. i think they were an affectation, and i often change them to arabic numbers. (and if i don't, i usually end up _wishing_ i would have, at some point.) arabic numbers are a lot easier to read, and their display is more consistent. the d.p. people and the whitewashers seem to love to line up those roman numerals in a t.o.c., and yes, it's quite easy to program a routine to do it, but it always strikes me visually as a waste of time and energy. > The front matter isn't always broken into pages correctly > (I think, as I don't have the originals). i believe you. > This may seem like niggling you don't have to apologize for having an esthetic sense... > This may seem like niggling, but in a book you often > have only page boundaries to delimit important stuff > like the title, author, publication date, dedication, etc. > from less important things like publishing history, > printing history, other titles by the same author, > or other titles in the same series, adverts for Mars bars > (you can find these in wartime Penguin paperbacks > explaining why the price has gone up from 2d to 3d!), etc. i feel your pain. > I think the interesting question here is > whether the layout problems are > artifacts of the html/epub generator(s), > in which case they can presumably be fixed > if other people agree with me, or whether they > come from eccentricities of the encoding > in rst format by the transcriber. well, i'd think it's as simple as throwing a pagebreak, or putting in a ruled line, but maybe i misunderstand? > I haven't yet found any block quotes in any of the books. so far, i think roger frank is the only person who has actually submitted a book in r.s.t. format. (and yes, he really is that productive, and was even before r.s.t. he's a fairly good example of what you can accomplish, digitizing books, if you have some good robust tools. it's bad, and sad, d.p. doesn't pay more attention to him.) anyway, roger does mostly very simple books, ones that are just straight paragraphs, for the most part, which is also one of the reasons why he's so prolific at the game. so it's not surprising he hasn't done things like that yet. > These typically feature smaller fonts alert! i caution someone who talks about "smaller fonts" when it comes to e-books. that practice must be avoided. whatever typographic function smaller fonts play in print must be totally reconsidered when it comes to e-books... the reason is simple: end-users select a font-size which is as _small_ as possible without being _uncomfortable_. so the rest of the argument falls into place automatically. if we make any text _smaller_, it becomes _uncomfortable_. ergo, that is not something that we can do. end of dialog. by the way, the same argument applies to _the_leading_, so that's also not a mechanism we can use in these cases; the good news is that _indentation_ still serves just fine. moreover, this is a variable where we can allow the _user_ to signal a _preference_ for how these structures display. > It would be reassuring to see that rst can deal with those. r.s.t. is quite capable of doing that. you can be reassured. > Having looked at the html in the epub file > I find it somewhat harder to read than that > in older epubs or html files. Mainly, I think, > because it's the product of a generator not a human. does it make you feel smart to examine the .html? ;+) because, seriously, i'm not sure why you want to do that. who cares what the underlying code looks like? not me. do you also dig into the postscript code inside of a .pdf? does it bother you that _that_ isn't very human-readable? i know it's hard for you to believe, right now, because you think .html is ubiquitous and that it will always be so, but it will _not_. it will go the way of the dodo bird, and -- hopefully -- that will happen faster than even i think. unfortunately, r.s.t. is not a very convincing substitute. if you look at any r.s.t. file, you will see _lots_ of the stuff that you'll easily recognize as being "markup"... all that stuff will go bye-bye eventually, because our machines will be smart enough to figure out what's a header, and what's a footnote, and what's a numbered list, and what's an item in that list, and what's an epigraph, and so on and so forth. of course, we'll need to give the machine some subtle hints, to steer it in the right direction, especially on things that might be ambiguous, but that kind of gentle nudging is what z.m.l. is. compared to that, .html markup is a bludgeon. take a look at some of the "raw" .zml files here: > http://www.z-m-l.com/go/vl3.pl now tell me why we need anything more than that. i mean, seriously, i use simple code to _convert_ that plain-text human-readable z.m.l. file into .html that a browser displays. so why couldn't _the_browser_ use that same simple code to do the same thing, so that i feed the browser z.m.l. and it converts my z.m.l. into the .html it "wants", and then displays it. the browser is _already_ megabytes of bloat, and my code is about 100k, so it could _easily_ be incorporated, and that'd make the lives of us humans _so_ much simpler. somebody with the power to make this change _will_ eventually come to grok the compelling strength of this argument, and dictate change... but in the meantime, if you still want to struggle through reading .html markup, be my guest, but i -- for one -- have more important stuff to do. > Has anybody worried about the lifespan or > broad acceptance of rst in the wider world? you don't need to worry about that... seriously, but... > I can only find references to it as a Python > documentation tool. How likely is it that rst tools > will be available and supported in a few decades, > or that there will be stable and detailed > definitions of rst by industry standards bodies > for implementations to conform to? ...it is somewhat amusing that you would ask this, because this is only an argument project gutenberg (i.e., _marcello_) uses _against_ tech he doesn't like. if _he_ uses something, its wider acceptance in the world at large doesn't make any difference at all... -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

jim said: > Your choice of rhetoric is > particularly unfortunate > given recent events. what are you trying to say, jim? because i don't like to _infer_... -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

jim, i don't need support. i can hunt you down myself, while sitting right here at my desk, typing these posts. the new version you requested will be up in 10 minutes, at the same u.r.l. as the last one. i await your feedback. -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

jim, do you really believe people here are so stupid that they can't see right through what you're doing? you say something is formatted badly, but you don't say what needs to be done to format it how you'd like. because we could give you what you want, if you just told us what it is. but you don't want us to succeed... so you just keep saying, "no, that's not quite right..." sooner or later, though, most especially if you expect anyone to take your "html should be the master-format" suggestion seriously -- or even _consider_ doing it -- you're going to need to take a stand on the formatting. and hey, even if you're not capable of _creating_ one, you can point people to a book you think is well-done. i'm not talking about some vague "there are some books coming out of d.p. that are fairly well-done" mumbling. give us the p.g. number of a specific title. what you _cannot_ do is to continue to evade the point. because i am hunting you down, jim. -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

well, i had a little spare time on my hands, after brunch, so i painted the bathroom walls, and cleaned up the shelves in the garage, and moved the peanut-butter to the cupboard, where i _personally_ think it should have been all along, so i'm glad jim brought up the issue and agreed. > http://z-m-l.com/go/jjngl/jjngl.html all your suggestions fixed, jim, to the degree that i understood them, so take a look at this version, and tell me if there's anything you want changed... meanwhile, i'm also waiting on those revised .pdfs that i requested from you. don't let me down, guy. -bowerbird p.s. i took out the mobi pagebreak commands, so marcello will be pleased we're back to validating...

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